I use the global crisis of 1914 as a window onto the phenomenon of investor reaction to complex news — such as sudden political upheaval. Based on a novel database of all stocks traded on the NYSE during 1914, along with “real-time” news accounts from major newspapers, I show that NYSE...

Investment banking taken generally to mean the financing of long-term capital needs, came into being with the merchants of medieval trade routes. In almost all developed economies of the world, even those developing late in the 19th century, investment bankers emerged from merchant roots. The...

This paper elucidates the key debates surrounding the optimal design of financial systems and institutions: bank-based versus market-based; universal versus specialized banking; relationship versus arms-length banking. The paper also examines the historical pattern of financial system development...

This book examines the origins of modern corporate finance systems during the rapid industrialization period leading up to World War I. The study leads to three sets of conclusions. First, modern financial systems are rooted in the past, are idiosyncratic to specific countries, and are highly...

We provide new evidence on the efficiency of the Berlin Stock Exchange prior to World War I, when it ranked among the top few markets worldwide by market capitalization. Using a new set of monthly stock price data for a random sample of German companies between 1904 and 1910, we estimate a...

Using a new daily dataset for all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange, we study the impact of information asymmetry during the liquidity freeze and market run of October 1907 - one of the most severe financial crises of the 20th century. We estimate that the run on the market increased...

The historical literature has traditionally paid much attention to the role of universal banking in the industrialization of Germany and has presumed, in line with Gerschenkron (1962), that the system gained preeminence in the late nineteenth century due to the general 'backwardness' of the...

The cross-section of average annual returns on German common stock in the period of 1881-1913 exhibits several of the patterns that have been observed in more recent U.S. data. Market beta is hardly important, and its explanatory power is swamped by size and the ratio of book value to market...